For two years running, religious groups were harassed in four-in-five countries (81%) worldwide, according to a recent Pew Research study. This finding is notable as government representatives from the world’s two economic superpowers meet to discuss human rights and religious freedom. The annual U.S.-China Human Rights Dialogue will be held July 30-31 in Kunming, China, which builds on the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue held earlier this month.

Indeed, recent studies by the Pew Research Center find that although Chinese government restrictions on religion have been and remain very high, social hostilities involving religion – which previously were low in the country – have risen into the moderate range over the past five years. And a Pew Research study looking at the U.S. situation finds that government restrictions on religion and social hostilities involving religion – while relatively low to moderate – have both been increasing in recent years.

For more on rising social hostilities involving religion in China, see my recent TEDx Talk and previous China blogs. For more on the situation in the U.S., see the Pew Research Center’s 2012 analysis and my previous U.S. blogs.

While the human rights discussions in Kunming will focus on concerns of the U.S. and China, they take place in a much larger context in which members of religious groups share in the experience of being harassed in the vast majority of the world’s countries.

Harassment and intimidation by governments or social groups take many forms, including physical assaults, arrests and detentions, the desecration of holy sites and discrimination against religious groups in employment, education and housing. Harassment and intimidation also include such things as verbal assaults on members of one religious group by other groups or individuals.

The Pew Research study finds that harassment or intimidation of specific religious groups occurred in 160 of 198 countries (81%) in 2011, the same number as in the year ending in mid-2010. In 2011, government or social harassment of Muslims was reported in 101 countries; the previous high was 96 countries in the first year of the study. Jews were harassed in 69 countries in 2011, about the same as the year before (68 countries, which was the previous high). As noted above, harassment of Christians continued to be reported in the largest number of countries (105), although this represented a decrease from the previous year (111).

Overall, across the five years of the Pew Research study, religious groups were harassed in a total of 185 countries at one time or another. Adherents of the world’s two largest religious groups, Christians and Muslims – who together comprise more than half of the global population – were harassed in the largest number of countries, 145 and 129 respectively. Jews, who comprise less than 1% of the world’s population, experienced harassment in a total of 90 countries, while members of other world faiths were harassed in a total of 75 countries.

In 2011, some religious groups were more likely to be harassed by governments, while others were more likely to be harassed by individuals or groups in society. Jews, for instance, experienced social harassment in many more countries (63) than they faced government harassment (28). Similarly, followers of folk and traditional faiths faced social harassment in four times the number of countries (21) as they faced government harassment (5). By contrast, members of other world faiths, such as Sikhs and Baha’is, were harassed by some level of government in about twice as many countries (39) as they were by groups or individuals in society (18).

Pope Francis will celebrate World Youth Day this week in one of the most religiously non-restrictive countries on the planet, according to a recent Pew Research study. It is a country also undergoing major religious shifts.

Low RestrictionsAmong the 25 most populous countries, only four have low government restrictions on religion, with Brazil having the lowest of all (see chart). Brazil has lower restrictions, in fact, than the United States, where restrictions have been rising.

Religious freedom, however, is highly valued in Brazil. For instance, when Brazilians were asked in a 2006 Pew Research survey whether it was important to live in a country where there is freedom of religion for religions other than their own, nearly the same percentage of people indicated that this was important (95%) as indicated that it was important to live in a country where they can practice their own religion freely (96%).

An expression of such support for religious freedom occurred this spring when the government of São Paulo - Brazil's commercial center and the western hemisphere's most populous city at 20 million - declared that henceforth May 25th will be "religious freedom day." This declaration coincided with a multi-faith religious freedom festival that drew nearly 30,000 participants, including the participation of the Catholic archdiocese, leading politicians and celebrities.

Low religious restrictions and support for religious freedom are notable in a country that is undergoing what is perhaps one of the most dynamic religious shifts in the world today.

Religious ShiftsSince the Portuguese colonized Brazil in the 16th century, it has been overwhelmingly Catholic. And today Brazil has more Roman Catholics than any other country in the world – an estimated 123 million. But a recent Pew Research analysis finds that the share of Brazil’s overall population that identifies as Catholic has been dropping steadily in recent decades, while the percentage of Brazilians who belong to Protestant churches has been rising. Indeed, much of the religious shift has been from Roman Catholicism to Pentecostal and Protestant denominations. For a historical overview of Pentecostalism in Brazil, see the Pew Research report Spirit and Power. Smaller but increasing shares of Brazilians also identify with other religions or with no religion at all.

The Pew Research analysis notes that from 2000 to 2010, both the absolute number and the percentage of Catholics declined; Brazil’s Catholic population fell slightly from 125 million in 2000 to 123 million a decade later, dropping from 74% to 65% of the country’s total population. The number of Brazilian Protestants (including Pentecostals), on the other hand, continued to grow in the most recent decade, rising from 26 million (15%) in 2000 to 42 million (22%) in 2010.

In addition, the number of Brazilians belonging to other religions – including Afro-Brazilian faiths such as Candomblé and Umbanda – has been climbing. In 2000, adherents of religions other than Catholicism and Protestantism numbered about 6 million (4% of Brazil’s population), and as of 2010, the group had grown to 10 million (5%). Finally, the number of Brazilians with no religious affiliation, including agnostics and atheists, numbered 12 million (7%) in 2000 and 15 million (8%) according to Brazil’s 2010 census.Given the level of religious switching in Brazil, it is particularly notable that a separate Pew Research study finds that there have been no reported incidents of hostility over conversions or proselytism.

A History of Religious DeregulationBrazil was not always known for religious tolerance. For instance, the persecution of Brazilian Jews in the 1600s sent the first group of Jews to New York in 1654. But writing in 1923, University of Texas legal expert Herman G. James noted that “It is safe to say that there is no other country in the world where the Roman Catholic faith is the traditional and prevailing faith of the inhabitants, where there is a more complete separation of Church and State, or where there is greater freedom of conscience and worship.”

As the twentieth century progressed, however, laws were passed making proselytizing more difficult for new religious groups and, in the 1940s, the government stopped issuing visas for Protestant missionaries. These limits were short lived. After a period of military rule that ended in 1985, politically active Protestant denominations and minority religions worked to ensure that religious freedom became a defining characteristic of church-state relations. For more details, see The Price of Freedom Denied: Religious Persecution and Conflict in the 21st Century.

Brazil is among the 76% of countries recently identified in a recent Pew Research study with initiatives to lower religious restrictions and hostilities. For instance, on January 15, 2012, President Dilma Rousseff approved an agreement to include the Holocaust, anti-Semitism, and other Jewish-related subjects, as well as racism, xenophobia, and intolerance, in the curricula of some schools, universities and other educational institutions.

Recently, Pope Francis called for more active dialogue with Islam. But the pontiff's envoy to Muslim-majority Malaysia, who called for interfaith dialogue this past week, met opposition from Muslim groups objecting to Catholics using "Allah" to refer to God.

But just how widespread are interfaith-dialogue initiatives? According to a recent report by the Pew Research Center, such efforts occurred in 110 of the 198 countries (56%) in 2011.

Some of these efforts involved multiple countries. For instance, the governments of Saudi Arabia, Austria and Spain signed an agreement to establish the King Abdullah International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (KAICIID) in October 2011. The center was inaugurated about a year later in Vienna, Austria, with the mission of fostering dialogue among members of different religions and cultures around the world.

Given that Saudi Arabia has among the world's highest levels of restrictions on religion, according to Pew Researchstudies, it is not surprising that the initiative drew mixed reactions. For differing perspectives on KAICIID, see Marc Schneider's “Amid Conflict, King Abdullah Interfaith Center Replaces Fear with Hope,” Elliot Abrams' “Plotting to Celebrate Christmas,” and the Economist's "The politics of inter-faith dialogue: It's (usually) good to talk."

Indeed, the Pew Research analysis does not attempt to assess the effectiveness of particular initiatives. The study notes that gauging effectiveness is difficult, in part because some initiatives may take years to produce results while others may have a short-term impact but little or no effect over the longer term.

Other efforts documented by the Pew Research study focused primarily on fostering communication and cooperation among leaders of religious groups. In Bolivia, for instance, leaders of the Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Jewish and indigenous communities continued to hold interfaith meetings in 2011. For the first time, a representative of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints also regularly participated in the sessions.

Other interfaith-dialogue projects involved people-to-people contact. In November 2011, for instance, UNICEF and the Global Network for the Religion of Children, an interfaith children’s rights group, brought together more than 2,000 children of diverse religious backgrounds from the Tanzanian mainland and Zanzibar. The children participated in joint prayer sessions and attended music, drama and poetry events.

The purpose of some interfaith dialogues was to develop strategies to combat religious intolerance. In May 2011, for example, 80 Muslim and Jewish leaders from Ukraine and Russia met in Kiev to work on a strategy to fight anti-Semitism and discrimination against Muslims. In 2011, the government of Paraguay established a permanent interfaith forum to promote dialogue between various religions.

Governments sometimes encouraged interfaith dialogue as a strategy to reduce tensions between religious groups. For instance, the Liberian government encouraged Muslim-Christian dialogue in 2011 after mosques, churches and a Catholic school were damaged the previous year during religious violence in the northernmost part of the country.

* As an extension of its continuing research on restrictions on religion around the world, Pew Research counted and categorized (“coded”) reports of interfaith dialogue initiatives during calendar year 2011. Comparable data for previous years are not available.

Pew Research gives context to the current crisis in Egypt, which last week saw the removal by the military of Pres. Mohammed Morsi, an Islamist and the first democratically elected president in the country's history. After the removal, the military has deployed troops as dozens of people were killed and scores injured across Egypt in protests on Friday.

Mr. Morsi is in detention along with senior Muslim Brotherhood figures. Morsi was replaced on Thursday by Adly Mansour - Egypt's chief justice - who has promised to hold elections soon but gave no date.

Two recent Pew Research reports give context to these events in Egypt. First, in the most recent analysis by Pew researchers Neha Sahgal and Brian Grim, they note that in the year following the Arab Spring, Egypt was home to some of the most intense government restrictions on religion. On top of that, they note that the government’s restrictions also are coupled with a Muslim public that is considerably less tolerant of religious pluralism than Muslims elsewhere.

Sahgal and Grim report that Pew Research public opinion polling conducted in Egypt during a similar time frame (November-December 2011) shows that many Egyptian Muslims recognize the lack of religious freedom in their society. When asked whether they are very free, somewhat free, not too free or not at all free to practice their religion, fewer than half of Egyptian Muslims (46%) answer “very free.” Fewer still think non-Muslims in Egypt are very free to practice their faith (31%). By contrast, a median of 78% of Muslims across the 39 countries polled in Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia, say they are very free to practice their religion, and 73% say non-Muslims in their country are free to practice their faith.

In a separate analysis, the Weekly Number noted that Egypt was one of two countries where Muslims expressed in lowest numbers that others were very free to practice their faith: Egypt (31%) and Uzbekistan (26%).

Overall, about one-in-five Muslims in Egypt (18%) describe non-Muslims as not too free or not at all free to practice their religion, according to Sahgal and Grim's analysis. However, Egyptian Muslims are not necessarily troubled by this perceived lack of religious freedom: Two-thirds of those who say non-Muslims in Egypt are not too free or not all free to practice their faith say this is a good thing.

Sahgal and Grim also report that, like many Muslim publics surveyed around the world, a majority of Egyptian Muslims (74%) want sharia, or Islamic law, enshrined as the official law of the land. However, Egypt is one of the few countries where a clear majority (74%) of sharia supporters say both Muslims and non-Muslims in their country should be subject to Islamic law. Worldwide, a median of 39% of Muslims who favor enshrining Islamic law say sharia should apply to Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

Egyptian Muslims also back criminalizing apostasy, or leaving Islam for another religion, according to Sahgal and Grim's analysis. An overwhelming majority of Egyptian Muslims (88%), say converting away from Islam should be punishable by death. Among the 37 countries where the question was asked, a median of 28% of Muslims say apostates should be subject to the death penalty.

And second, a Pew Research Center analysis released last month found government restrictions on religion in Egypt in 2011 included the use of force against religious groups; failure to prevent religious discrimination; favoritism of Islam over other religions; prohibitions on Muslims converting from Islam to other religions; stigmatization of some religious groups as dangerous sects or cults; and restrictions on religious literature or broadcasting. Not only were each of these government restrictions present in Egypt, but the intensity of each of these restrictions was higher than in other countries.

Those actions earn Egypt an overall score of 8.9 out of 10 on the 2011 Government Restrictions Index — a scale developed by Pew Research to gauge government restrictions on religion in nearly 200 countries and territories over time. That’s much higher than Middle Eastern-North African countries as a whole, where the median index score (including Egypt’s) is 5.9.